Acqua! ventisei. Sabbia! trentasette. (Water! twenty six. Sand! thirty seven). A voice called out the temperature of sea and land on a loudspeaker at the beach of Lignano Sabbiadoro on the Italian coast. I placed my towel on the sand next to a lifeguard station and felt the heat. People were running from their umbrellas to the sea (sometimes carrying small children) as the sand burned underfoot. I debated trying a satellite pass, decided not to in this unlikely location, and finally thought I’d try. Something about being in a swimsuit with the ground station immediately felt weird! My radio antenna got the attention of many, even at a distance - I caught several men with beer-bellies and leathery skin staring at me. Sadly I didn’t catch any signal - I had a big view of the sky, and checked and re-checked my settings, but it was difficult to see the tiny numbers in the android radio software in the sunlight. I decided to try again later, and I ended up catching a pass late at night from the balcony of T’s mom’s apartment. The shadowy form of the boot of Italy appeared in the infrared channel, lighter than the water (and therefore cooler). This puzzled me until I realised that land loses heat faster than water; the sea ‘holds’ it.